CoinCards Passes 1000 Completed Orders

Ever since people began living on Bitcoin, gift cards have been a popular choice. By accepting bitcoins for gift cards from vendors like Tim Hortons and Amazon.ca, CoinCards.ca has been a good measure of the Canadian Bitcoin economy, allowing people who get paid in BTC to access all kinds of goods and services. Recent figures now show that the economy is doing well.

CoinCards began accepting orders in 2014, filling 70 orders before year’s end. They shipped another 700 in 2015, recently passing 1000 orders total for over $235,000 CAD in sales revenue. The number of different gift cards available continues to grow, with over 100 vendors currently available.

It was established by Mike Olthoff, a Bitcoin enthusiast from British Columbia. A known member of the Bitcoin Vancouver Meet Up, he has supported multiple community initiatives and is now a director of the Bitcoin Co-op. He’s also active at Decentral Vancouver, a local community space for decentralization advocates.

“I love Bitcoin and I see a huge potential in its future as a currency,” Mike said to NewsBTC Canada. “Ever since my first Bitcoin Meet Up, I’ve been on a constant drive to learn more and become more involved.”

Among the most popular Bitcoin gift cards are the ones for the PlayStation Network and Apple Store. This demonstrates that Bitcoin users tend to be tech savvy, and have income to spare on new toys. The aforementioned Amazon.ca gift card makes an even wider variety of products available, as do slightly less popular options like Best Buy.

Another one of the top 5 most popular gift cards is for Save-on-Foods, which shows that many Canadians rely on Bitcoin for basic necessities. Customers can also stock up at Costco if they really want to save money, and some go for the Walmart Standard Gift Card. Many of these are purchased by repeat customers who get paid in and live most of their lives on cryptocurrency.

Unfortunately, most of these vendors do not accept bitcoins directly. “Bitcoin adoption is a huge passion of mine, but we seem to have stalled in companies willing to adopt in 2015,” Mike said. “CoinCards.ca has been able to fill that gap for consumers and prove that people want to use Bitcoin to pay for their everyday lives.”

NewsBTC is one of the largest online resources for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency news. Canada is a World renowned development hub for Bitcoin and FinTech advancements so extending NewsBTC specifically into Canada was a logical step. Having previously been involved in the earlier days of Bitcoin publishing significantly helped with my re-entry into the mix and it is thrilling to be a part of the NewsBTC family in representing Canadian FinTech.